DESTINATIONS: New Deal for FDR site with rededication today (video)

Richard Nixon, left, and James Samha of A. Santini Moving and Storage carry furniture into Franklin D. Roosevelt's personal library, which was restored as part of the renovation project. (Freeman photo by Tania Barricklo)

A bust of Franklin D. Roosevelt sits in the courtyard of the presidential library. (Freeman photo by Tania Barricklo)

The Freeman's 'Destinations' takes a look at the touristic places that define the Hudson Valley and the Catskills. The occasional series is set to run the last Sunday of every month during 2013. Experience this story as a scroll.

He was handsome, rich and privileged.

Ultimately turning his back on all that, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, elected an unprecedented four times as the nation's 32nd president, changed forever the relationship of the presidency to the American people.

"A New Deal for a New Generation," the $35 million renovation to the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde Park, will culminate in today's rededication of the site. It details, through hundreds of vintage black-and-white photos and text, as well as state-of-the-art touch-screen monitors, that dramatic shift in the role of the presidency .

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One of 13 American presidential libraries, it is the only one created by a sitting president, according to Lynn Bassanese, its director since February. She served as acting director for two years and has worked at the FDR site in various capacities since 1972.

Bassanese said the museum and library is funded and managed by the National Archives and Records Administration, a federal agency. Springwood, FDR's childhood home, and Val-Kill, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt's cottage, are funded and managed by the National Parks Service, also a federal agency.

The renovations were necessary, Bassanese said, not only to preserve the building and collections, but also to introduce Roosevelt's legacy to a new generation who would only know him through history books. "FDR changed the way government interacted with the American people," Bassanese said. "He believed government has an obligation to help people. It was a revolutionary idea at the time and is stilled debated today.

"So many benefits that we take for granted -- Social Security, minimum wage, child labor laws -- are a direct inheritance from the Roosevelt presidency," she added. "We want a new generation to understand how the New Deal contributes to their quality of life today. We do that by bringing people into the world of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt.

Yet, Bassanese added, the characteristic that enabled FDR to prevail was his continuing optimism, the belief that things would work out.

"He never gave up hope that he would walk again," she said. "He had that rare quality -- to be able to impart that sense of optimism to the American people, even on the darkest days.

"That optimism, combined with a great sense of purpose, marks FDR and his presidency."

Today's date for the rededication of the library and museum was selected specifically to mark the date of the original dedication on June 30, 1941, by Roosevelt, Bassanese said, adding that the two-phase renovation was a hard-won effort to convince Congress it was necessary.

"Whenever a member of Congress visited, we took them on what we called, 'the good tour' and then 'the bad tour'," Bassanese recalled with a smile. "On the 'good' tour, we showed them all the treasures of a 20th century presidency. Then, we took them on the 'bad' tour, showing them the leaking roof and the sewage backing up in the basement."

Funding was finally approved. The project consisted of two phases over three years with a budget of $35 million in federal funding. The work is the first full-scale renovation of the library and museum, with the exception of two wings added in honor of Mrs. Roosevelt in 1972, since it opened.

The renovation brings the library's archives and museum up to the National Archive's standards for the preservation of historic collection, while preserving the building's historic appearance, Bassanese said.

Even though the library contains 22,000 books of more than 17 million pages, and the museum close to 35,000 historic artifacts, Bassanese said the museum and library never closed during the entire renovation.

"First, we moved everything out of the attic to the basement so we could fix the roof during Phase 1," she said. "Then, during Phase 2, we moved everything out of the basement, into the attic, so we could complete work on the basement and first floor."

The staff had determined that visitors would still be welcomed to the site even though renovations were under way, she said. "We set up a special black-and-white photography exhibit with accompanying text on the Roosevelt presidency. Even though visitors could not tour the entire site, we ensured that the exhibit engaged them."

The scope of work included new drainage, landscaping, slate and copper roofing systems, windows and doors, exterior stone re-pointing and new bluestone walkways, as well as upgrading all mechanical, electrical, plumbing, security and fire protection systems.

Cliff Laube, public programs specialist, said the building was made fully compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. He said the first and immediate change was to the entrance, which originally had two steps.

"We re-graded the ramp so everyone enters the site at the same level," Laube said. "That continues throughout the site, as FDR would have wanted."

"There are no artifacts now in the lobby as a way to make it more welcoming," he said. "The lobby sets the tone of the entire renovation."

He added that there is a photograph of a smiling, relaxed Roosevelt surrounded on both sides with rows of letters "from ordinary Americans" to the president.

"Not just the good stuff," Laube said. "Roosevelt was not without critics, and we included some of those letters."

The bottom two rows of letters are from children, set at a level so children can read them, according to Laube.

Construction crews were working busily to ensure construction completion before today's rededication. Not all the exhibition spaces were finished.

"The exhibition space begins with 'The Promise of Change' during Roosevelt's election campaign," Laube said. The exhibits continue through the years of the Roosevelt presidency, up to his death on April 12, 1945, in Warm Springs, Ga., from a cerebral hemorrhage.

The exhibits document the early days of the New Deal, the first 100 days, through to World War II. Laube demonstrated a replica late 1930s kitchen with a vintage radio. Seated at the kitchen table, Laube said visitors could touch a button to hear three of Roosevelt's famous "Fireside Chats" or read letters written to him about those chats.

"Not all of them are in agreement with the president," he said.

Bassanese said the footprint of the building did not change during the renovation, but the museum gained 3,000 more square feet, from 9,000 to 12,000, of exhibition space.

While the $35 million in federal funding renovated the physical facility, she added, an additional $6 million was expended to bring state-of-the-art technology to the exhibition space.

The Roosevelt Institute, headed by Anne Roosevelt, the couple's granddaughter, made the funds available for the exhibits, she said.

Bassanese said people who have visited the museum in the past have not seen the museum.

"Oh, no, no, no! This is all brand new! Everything is new!" Bassanese said, adding that the renovations make the site one of the best historical museums in the country.

"There is a lot of interactive immersion," Bassanese said. "They are huge vessels of content, presented in a more engaging way, with a vast amount of information on touch screen monitors."

The renovations merge the best of current technology with that of vintage posters, photographs and text to appeal to a wide and varying audience, she added.

"Special interactive, immersive audio-visual theater and rarely seen artifacts tell the dramatic story of the Roosevelt era to a new -- and an older -- generation," she said.

"Confront the Issues" are 10 interactive touch screens placed strategically through the exhibit that offer visitors the chance to check out digital "flipbooks," which contain documents, photographs, and excerpts from historians that represent multiple viewpoints that relate to controversial issues during Roosevelt's presidency, according to Bassanese.

The new galleries will feature two immersive Fireside Chat Environments that will have a radio and period furnishings inviting visitors to sit and listen, she said. Most impressive, however, is the recreation of the 500-square-foot Map Room, the secret room in the White House basement from which Roosevelt conducted World War II.

Bassanese said the Map Room walls will feature projections of maps and timelines of key battles and decisions, as well as animations so visitors can follow along with the maps as the president did to understand the importance and context of Roosevelt's war strategies. In various places in the Map Room are vintage telephones, from which Roosevelt conducted the war.

"The only 'special equipment' for the president in the Map Room were a telephone and a de-coder," Bassanese said. "Yet, he won the largest war in history."

The renovations will also permit visitors "Behind the Scenes," a chance to view numerous museum objects that don't appear in the permanent collection, she said. Glass viewing rooms give visitors a look into the collections of the president and first lady, including his model ship collection, his beloved 1936 Ford Phaeton with hand controls, Val-Kill furniture, family paintings and portraits, New Deal art and gifts of state.

Central to the renovation, Bassanese said, is the role of first lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Previously, she said, information on Mrs. Roosevelt were separate from the rest of the museum.

"Eleanor is woven throughout the entire exhibit," Bassanese said. "We can't talk about FDR without including ER.

"Eleanor played a central role in FDR'S life and presidency. She prodded the president to think of new solutions to national problems. Eleanor was able to be more vocal in public, because she did not have to concern herself with political issues."

Bassanese said Eleanor was outspoken in public about race issues. Regardless of what FDR believed, he needed the support of the Southern Democrats in Congress, so he was more cautious, she added.

The exhibits do not end at Roosevelt's death, according to Bassanese. A special gallery, dedicated to the first lady, reveals her life and the causes she embraced from 1945 to her death in 1962.

Bassanese said Americans today are so accustomed to the legacy of the Roosevelt presidency that they take them for granted. Among them: Social Security, the GI Bill, the United Nations, the minimum wage, the 40-hour work week, child labor laws, labor union rights, fair employment practices, unemployment insurance, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Securities and Exchange Commission, Small Business Loans, farm subsidies, 65 national parks and monuments, 78,000 bridges and 650,000 miles of roads.

"Visitors can still learn the stories with black and white graphics alone," Bassanese said. "If they spend an hour, they get the idea. If they spend two hours, the stories come more into correlation.

"But, even if they stop at every single touch screen monitor, over eight hours, I don't think they could take it all in," she added. "If nothing else comes from a visitor's time here, we want them to learn about the spirit of the Roosevelts, FDR and ER, their single-minded necessity to help people in the two greatest challenges of the 20th century: The Great Depression and World War II."